When I make a smoothie with oranges, it always takes alot of time and effort to get them into the mixer.

At first I tried quatering them and then cutting out the flesh giving the skin a squeeze to get more juice. This works fine, takes some time though and is a pain in the ass if there are stones in the oranges.

So now I half them and squeeze them in a manual orange juicer, you know, the kind where there is a cone with hole in the bottom and you squeeze the orange against it. While this is great to avoid stones its still time consuming and feel weired to first make juice.

Id much prefer to just take a lot of fruits and stuff, out them into the mixer and press a button.

Is there an easier way to get oranges into a smoothie?What is your way?

A lot of it depends on the quality of your blender. Something expensive (Vitamix, Blentec) will pulverize anything that gets in the way. I like to make semi-custom orange juice by adding 4 cups of orange juice and 4 oranges and blending it all. Makes a thicker juice with more fiber!

[quote="Fallen_Horse"]Dates by themselves? Too dry for good blending I think...

Well i will be using some seeds, possibly adding in a little nuts and dried berries such as goji or incan, so yeah i think trying to blend all the above including a few powders such as maca and spirulina would be too dry.